Just heard something I’ve never heard before. The term “Tule Fog”. From what I can gather from this Accuweather report from California, Tule Fog (pronounced “Toolee” Fog) is the generic inversion layer type fog that we get here pretty much all winter. There is a beautiful Satellite image of the entirety of Central California covered in this fog.

This will be coming to an end for them in the next day or so. And for us, we will be getting a break from the monotony, we might even see some flurries tonight… nothing much. After that we should hopefully cool off a bit and get some clearer skies. Then there is possibility for small snowfall late in the week.

When I was living in San Francisco, fog was a fact of life, and what blew in off the Pacific was pretty much as blinding as what would form on the ground in the Central Valley. Interesting, though, that anywhere removed from the urban community was called “out in the Tulies”. I had assumed that it was a reference to those exiled to Thule, Greenland during the Second World War to shepherd convoys across the Atlantic (where one camp was apparently known, not-too-affectionately, as Camp Kwitcherbellyachin’). It certainly was well off the beaten path and far from the comforts of home. I had, of course, forgotten entirely about Thule/Tule fog…